tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242143342014-10-02T01:15:17.727-04:00reMedia!An entertainment blog that pops culture right in the kisser.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-24006153952829622772007-10-24T17:19:00.000-04:002007-10-24T19:51:35.114-04:00film | Chortle kombat<p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2410/1491141943_aae7de5b89_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Perhaps the most ridiculous thing about <b>DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE</b> — and holy crap, there is a solid metric ton of ridiculousness in this movie — turns out to be its title. An invite-only fighting tournament summons the best brawlers from all over the world — among them, our heroines: scantily-clad babes with what my uncle would refer to as "bodacious ta-tas" — to a top-secret island compound, and you might think, based on the <i>Dead or Alive</i> part, that the losers and winners would very appropriately be determined by, y'know, who's dead and who's alive at the end of each round. But no, this Kombat ain't Mortal: Victory goes to the dude or lady who merely knocks out his or her opponent first. A pox on that pesky PG-13 rating! Actually, make that a <i>double</i>-pox, as <i>DOA</i> skimps equally on both the gratuitous violence <i>and</i> the gratuitous nudity that usually come attached to kind of Z-grade exploitation cheeseball, which means that broken limbs and inventive deaths are supplanted by the fakey wire-fu acrobatics of the <i>Charlie's Angels</i> films, and any and all bodacious ta-tas are kept snugly in form-fitting attire; it's like one of Andy Sidaris' tits-and-bandoliers action flicks from late-night Skinemax in the mid-1990s got edited for prime-time television.<br /><p align="justify">At least two of the foxy fisticuffettes — <i>My Name Is Earl</i>'s Jaime Pressly, the "superstar wrestler," and Aussie pop star Holly Valance, the "assassin and master thief" — seem fully aware that they're wading through campy garbage, but director Cory Yuen (<i>The Transporter</i>) forgot to prod <i>Sin City</i>'s wooden Devon Aoki, the "shinobi ninja princess" (that translates as "ninja ninja princess"), into tossing a wink or nine into such goofy lines as "He says Leon killed Hayate above the Buddha head" and "I am not a cricket in a box!" Eric Roberts is cast the villain, of course, a psycho moneybags who secretly injects the gals with nanobots that upload their fierce fight moves directly to his designer Wayfarers. I guess it doesn't need to be explicitly said that <i>DOA</i> is based on a popular video game, and, well, you try to go easy on a brainless jigglefest that's this brazen about catering to preteen boys and their joysticks. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-6580457230477595712007-10-07T20:05:00.001-04:002007-10-08T12:06:42.181-04:00film | Braaaaaindead<p><center><img src=" http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/1454095459_6e6f1dbeeb_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">I'm not quite sure what the subtitle of <b>RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION</b>, this season's gore-spattered zombie smackdown, refers to. The human good guys don't, of course, end up vanquishing all of their undead foes; the undead foes don't, of course, end up devouring all of the human good guys; and — gargantuan <i>of course</i> en route — the movie's finale alludes to a <i>Resident Evil 4</i>, so you know that the franchise ain't goin' extinct either. And that's precisely the problem: This second sequel to 2002's <i>Resident Evil</i> — rote but surprisingly watchable — feels less like its own chapter than an extended previously-on-<i>Resident</i>-<i>Evil</i> recap that exists to merely set the stage for future episodes. Blame the script's rampant lack of imagination, which dooms too much of <i>Extinction</i> to repeat the same ass-kickery on display in better horror shows ... including, yes, <i>Resident Evil</i>. You dug the scenes in <i>RE</i> 1 where Alice (Milla Jovovich), a babelicious security officer who takes on the abominable grotesqueries created by a virus manufactured in the secret underground labs of the über-shady Umbrella Corporation, tussled with monster Dobermans, ravenous reanimated corpses, and tentacled mutant behemoths? Great! Because here they are again. On repeat. For 95 minutes. <br /><p align="justify">So while a good deal of <i>Resident Evil: Extinction</i> has the mushy palate of microwaved leftovers, it still boasts one or two skillfully engaging action sequences. And hey, that's one or two skillfully engaging action sequences more than 2004's execrable <i>Resident Evil: Apocalypse</i>, a film that roused me only during the moment where Jovovich piloted her motorcycle through a stained-glass window, and that's mostly because I momentarily thought the theater projectionist had swapped out a reel of the film for <i>The Great Muppet Caper</i>. But put the entertaining bits aside — the nifty siege by zombie crows that skillfully spins what Alfred Hitchcock's <i>The Birds</i> woulda been like directed by George Romero on speed, a carnage-happy climax that kills off most of the irritating cast members — and you’re left with a greatest-hits montage of stock genre components: the sidekick (<i>RE</i> 2's Mike Epps) who gets bitten and keeps his transformation to slobbering monstrosity a secret as long as possible; the phony-baloney scares (phew! It was only a can of nails! Or a lamp!); the pompous-ass British scientist (<i>RE</i> 2's Iain Glen) whose chin-strokingly brilliant scheme to rehabilitate the Living Dead naturally doesn't turn out too well for him. In a year that's seen both wittier — <i>Planet Terror</i>, Robert Rodriguez's <i>Grindhouse</i> lark — and smarter — <i>28 Weeks Later</i>, with its dire political subtext — riffs on the old zombie formula, this <i>Resident Evil</i> just doesn't cut the gristle. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-23574110424726261662007-09-28T14:10:00.000-04:002007-10-24T09:28:45.534-04:00film | The disillusionist<p><center><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1123/1443487643_3e4bf2b43a_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">In an old episode of <i>Mystery Science Theater 3000</i>, one of the snarky robot commentators chides a film's horrendously nebbish leading man like so: "This isn't our star, is it? I will not accept this as our star! Can I see your supervisor, movie? This will not stand!" I thought the same thing during the opening moments of the botched techno-thriller <b>NEXT</b>, which introduce us to a low-rent Las Vegas magician played by a cringingly gallant Nicolas Cage under what might be the silliest receding mane of fake hair ever put on celluloid. As he dodges an array of bullets, explosions and bad-guy punches — he's a precognitive who can peek a whole two minutes into the future, because, you know, three minutes would really push that believability into the danger zone — you might wonder if you're watching <i>Young Martin Van Buren: Action Hero</i> or <i>They Call Me MISTER Tesh!</i>, Cage's bizzare New Age-y coif is so ridiculously distracting. And why wouldn't it be? Very loosely based on a 1980 book (<i>The Golden Man</i>) by famed sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, <i>Next</i> sports a dismally direct-to-DVD plot involving the government's attempts to nab Cage and use his psychic powers to thwart an impending terrorist attack, and if only <i>I</i> could also see two minutes into the future, I'd have tossed a pillow on top of my keyboard for when I dozed off writing that story synopsis. <i>Ouch.</i><br /><p align="justify">When the feds finally capture Cage, they strap him to a chair, attach a pair of the Ludovico speculums from <i>A Clockwork Orange</i> to his eyelids, and force him to watch the evening news. I think they're hoping for the day's headlines to trigger Cage into foretelling what city the nondescript Eurotrash villains — they're Russian, though I'm pretty sure they're speaking French — intend to blow up, but this is a woefully sketchy idea, not in the least because a warning window of two minutes ain't terribly reassuring when you're talking about a nuclear siege on unspecified American soil. Anyway, Cage seems less concerned with matters of national security than protecting the damsel-in-distress school teacher (<i>The Illusionist</i>'s Jessica Biel) <i>Next</i> laughably asks us to accept as his tagalong romantic interest. Her character makes zero sense, as she's required to stick with — and sleep with! <i>Ick!</i> — the increasingly erratic Cage well after a reasonable gal would get skeeved out and boogie, but then neither does much of the rest of the movie, especially the fantastic Julianne Moore lending her talent to the thankless role of the FBI agent on Cage's case. (Seriously, Julianne: I mean, it's great to see you and all, but <i>what the hell are you doing here?</i>) However, just in case you're wondering, both Biel and Moore's locks look positively <i>luscious</i>, so that's one tic for the plus column right there. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-14607341143192368122007-09-26T21:52:00.000-04:002007-09-27T20:44:58.159-04:00film | Poor bloodsport<p><center><img src=" http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1222/1396761215_aade3dbd1e_o.jpg "></center><p align="justify">So this might be, like, the most obvious review opener ever, but <b>THE CONDEMNED</b>, a moronic thriller starring and produced by the action figures of World Wrestling Entertainment, ain't gonna win this year's Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. As a Special Ops spook who's plucked from a corrupt Central American prison to compete in a grisly Internet showdown against other unscrupulously-assembled death-rowers from across the globe, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin — he of the sitout three-quarter facelock jawbreaker, the aesthetically bizarre hulking-frame/skeletal-face combo, and the Wal-Mart poster bin — gets bupkis in the way of crackling dialogue. You'd think screenwriters Scott Wiper (who also directed) and Rob Hedden would've tossed at least a couple of decent kiss-off one-liners his way, but he mostly just growls variations on the same old boring-ass fight taunt:<ul><li>"Let's go!"<br /><li>"Let's go, sweetheart!"<br /><li>"Let's dance, asshole!"</ul><p align="justify">And if you think I'm a bit outta line whining about the sophistication of the writing in a WWE flick, well, I'm not, cuz <i>The Condemned</i> takes itself seriously enough to betray its mindless-action-junk trappings and instead grandstand as a sanctimonious indictment of both violence-as-sport purveyors and hungry-for-blood spectators. Uh, hello, this movie was: A) bankrolled by an organization that makes scads of money from folks who watch with rabid enthusiasm as the overzealous man-ogres on their payroll pound each other in the face with folding chairs; and B) released by Lionsgate, the studio that plops one of those skanky <i>Saw</i> cesspools into theaters every Halloween. <i>The Condemned</i>, then, is almost amusing in its finger-wagging foolishness. <i>Almost.</i> "I want a fucking Arab! A child-killing, Koran-ranting, suicide-bombing Arab!" screams the sleazeball snuff producer (Robert Mammone), a real equal-opportunity offender, of the his program’s racial diversification; later, the worm predictably turns for a few of his tech lackeys who are shocked — <i>shocked</i> — when a female "contestant" is brutally dispatched, like, live on the Intarweb and everything! (Er, wasn't this in the job description?) As the feds frantically race to find this extremely illegal competition’s secret island location — why they don't think to simply ask the Diane Sawyer-esque journalist who was there shooting a segment for her TV show is beyond me — you'll feel increasingly like you just survived a sweltering jungle deathmatch yourself: i.e., in need of a very long, very hot shower. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-81712731145171525382007-09-19T08:53:00.001-04:002009-07-23T13:49:23.766-04:00film | Dim sum<p><center><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1219/1286888800_e2193677fa_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">If nothing else, <b>THE NUMBER 23</b> gave me a brand-spankin'-new entry on my List of Stuff I Never Ever Want to See in a Movie Again: Jim Carrey in the throes of kinky sexual make-believe. ("Pretend that you have a knife. Cut my shirt. Cut me! <i>Cut me!</i>") This ridiculous mystery-thriller from notoriously spotty director Joel Schumacher (<i>Phone Booth</i> [good], <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> [not]) miscasts the erstwhile Pet Detective in a wonky dual role: a mild-mannered dog catcher who receives a mysterious secondhand paperback as a gag birthday gift from his wife (Virginia Madsen), and — as he reads along and visualizes the story — the book's main character, a Goth-<i>noir</i> private eye entangled in a seedy web of lust, murder, suicide, and a very peculiar obsession with the titular digits. As Literal Carrey allows himself to get sucked hard into Literary Carrey's paranoid fantasia, he starts to sputter kooky declarations like "I was born at 11:12 p.m.! 11 plus 12? 23!" and "Waco, Texas and the Oklahoma City bombing both happened on April 19th! 4 plus 19 is 23!" Yeah. Okay. <i>And?</i> The film is never clear about what all these dire mathematics mean, other than that you can probably finagle a 23 from just about any given numerical sequence depending on your strategic placement of addition, multiplication and subtraction functions. That's less a terrifying movie scenario than, y'know, a rudimentary brain-teaser. <br /><p align="justify">Actually, "rudimentary brain-teaser" is a good way to encapsulate <i>The Number 23</i>. The script, by first-timer Fernley Phillips, wants to flaunt twisted smarts in its portrayal of a fragile psyche collapsing in on itself, but it's mostly a load of stylized conspiratorial hooey that maybe never seems quite as awful as it truly is because of distractingly impressive technical credits. (Seriously, the cinematography by <i>Requiem for a Dream</i>'s Matthew Libatique and the production design by <i>Down With Love</i>'s Andrew Laws are worth checking out for at least 23 minutes.) Carrey's unflappably game, but he's not an actor who can pull off the Raymond Chandler-esque narration or the tough-guy body tattoos; in fact, the movie's increasingly rampant nuttiness (sample straight-faced dialogue: "It's all over, Topsy Kretts!") amplifies Carrey's ingrained wacky persona to the degree that he begins to seem smarmy and disingenuous — like he's mere moments away from talking with his ass or busting out a "Somebody stop me!" — as <i>Number</i> enters its gloomy homestretch. And though Madsen is a warm and lovely presence in any film, her character does things that make no sense ("I took the skeleton, but I didn't write the book!"), and I'm a little concerned that her acclaimed comeback in 2004's <i>Sideways</i> has yielded the same wifely duties in this, <i>The Astronaut Farmer</i> and last year's <i>Firewall</i>. She deserves better parts, and there were only 22 letters in that concluding observation. Ha. Suck it, <i>23</i>. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-44705059548342002442007-09-12T11:43:00.000-04:002007-09-17T08:22:57.351-04:00film | Dud of winter<p><center><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1153/1321749515_ce2dcb3984_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">In the frigid thriller <b>WIND CHILL</b>, two college kids driving home for the holidays take an ill-advised shortcut on a remote backroad, wind up stuck in a snowbank as night falls and temperatures plummet, and then realize they're not alone out there — you know, in the bad way. It's a boilerplate horror clothesline, but whatever <i>Wind Chill</i> lacks in novelty is initially offset by its promising pedigree: George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh produce, <i>The Devil Wears Prada</i>'s fabulous Emily Blunt stars, and for the better part of a half-hour, she and Ashton Holmes (<i>A History of Violence</i>), as the unlucky (and unnamed — they're listed on the credits as "Girl" and "Guy") travelers, are real and relatable enough to juice a weary movie scenario with engrossing, <i>what-could-possibly-go-wrong-next?</i> dread. Unfortunately, what <i>does</i> go wrong next is the film, which turns into a supremely half-assed ghost story — our photogenic leads are spooked by the spirits of a murderous state trooper (<i>The Opposite of Sex</i>'s Martin Donovan) and his frostbitten victims — when the implications that Holmes might have stalker-ish designs on Blunt were already goosebumping just fine, thanks. From here, director Gregory Jacobs (2004's <i>Criminal</i>) focuses on the ho-hum supernatural jolts — a disfigured phantom vomits a snake, a car radio plays old Christmas jingles as sinister musical portents — but they're so murky and nonsensical that a tertiary stock character, the helpful tow truck driver, is needed to drop into the movie's climax merely to provide a psuedo-explanation. It has something to do with Nietzsche's theory of Eternal Recurrence, which I think is the idea that watching a puzzling shocker like <i>Wind Chill</i> can seem like a infinite loop of the same doofy scare. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-35011823473556754532007-08-30T21:10:00.002-04:002009-07-23T14:36:47.178-04:00film | The mildest game ever played<p><center><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/1284745589_03dd7e39fd_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify"><b>BALLS OF FURY</b> would be a terrific wink-nudge title for a porno James Bond adventure — picture this: Goldfingerer and his henchman Handjob steal the royal orbs from Suckingham Palace, and it's up to Agent 0069 and the spicy seductress Queef Latina to retrieve them — but instead it's a terrifically eye-rolling wink-nudge title for the latest silly sports spoof to emerge from the musty basement locker room of Hollywood's discount comedy warehouse. Not that the name ain't apropos. I mean, the movie's about a vicious underground table tennis tournament held at the secret Central American jungle compound of a bloodthirsty arms dealer, so it's actually a pretty good fit. But if you're already groaning at the sight of the poster or TV ads, you're reacting on the right track, as <i>Balls of Fury</i> isn't anywhere near as funny as, say, 2004's shockingly subversive <i>Dodgeball</i>. But it's also not so dreadfully <i>un</i>funny that I'd be averse to paying it a few sundry compliments. And by that, I mean, y'know, it made me laugh every once in a while. Oh, and it sets the bar admittedly high for computer-generated Ping-Pong ball effects. And Christopher Walken performs a karaoke version of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" during the closing credits, which is something you don't see everyday, so there's that.<br /><p align="justify">Walken — who must be a big fan of Ping-Pong and/or director/co-writer Ben Garant's <i>Reno 911!</i>, for I am otherwise loath to explain his unlikely presence in this unabashed nonsense — plays the eccentric crime boss, absurdly decked out in wig and wardrobe refurbished from the <i>Bram Stoker's Dracula</i> lot sale. An actor whose distinctive deadpan-staccato line delivery seems borne of impromptu farce, he's a boon to the comic la-la-landscape of Thomas Lennon — who co-stars as a burly German pro-Ponger — and Garant's script. (As two of <i>Reno</i>'s aloof police officers, both Lennon and Garant are aces of improvised lunacy themselves.) A droll, what-the-hell mischievousness follows Walken around, but the rest of the movie relies too heavily on blind-Asians-are-hilarious gags, as our schlubby hero (Tony-winner Dan Fogler, gamely aping the entire <i>oeuvre</i> of Jack Black), a former table-tennis wunderkind, hops back on the paddle under the Zen tutelage of a sight-impaired master-trainer (James Hong) in hopes of vanquishing Walken for good. There are a few inspired <i>Naked Gun</i>-style visual gags, and a lots of doofy fortune-cookie dialogue ("Better to die like a tiger than live like a pussy"), but it's mostly lowest-common-denominator business as usual: When in doubt, farts, pratfalls and blows to the scrotum are always grand. Well, actually, they're not. Which is kinda the problem. <b>C+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-235819591457668582007-08-30T00:19:00.000-04:002007-08-30T00:25:15.022-04:00popScorn | I suffer so you don't have to<p><center><img src="http://static.flickr.com/108/258716664_6630aa77c0_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">I'm always up for a bad-movie night, as my Netflix friends who shake their heads at my overstuffed-with-surefire-crud queue can attest. I've willingly endured some incredibly painful, er, "movies" — <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0355650/">Killer Drag Queens on Dope</i></a>, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183717/">Rock & Roll Frankenstein</i></a>, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0222817/">Entrails of a Virgin</i></a>, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091847/">Revenge of the Living Dead Girls</i></a>, and <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338479/">Tales from the Crapper</i></a> immediately come to mind — thanks to Netflix's intoxicating selection of dreck, and yet I sometimes can't help myself. Today, for example, I read Netflix user Flashbulb's review of a 1989 Japanese horror flick called <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096251/">Tetsuo: The Iron Man</i></a>:<blockquote>Boy is turning into a central air conditioning unit. Girl is turning into a Toyota transaxle. Boy meeets girl. Girl grows 8 foot long phallus made of 1 inch corrogated steel conduit. Boy feels masculinity is threatened and grows 3 foot diamond tip rotorooter out of his groin. It is shorter but much thicker, and girth is what counts. Every filmaker in Japan is influenced for the next 2 generations. AMEN.</blockquote><p align="justify"><i>Wow.</i> Obviously, I couldn't add it to the queue quickly enough.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-66796256992487702952007-08-29T13:21:00.002-04:002009-07-23T13:49:51.653-04:00film | Surf bored<p><center><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1328/622244828_b0804eb125_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">You've seen those knock-off superhero action figures dangling on the pegs at the Dollar Tree: Arachnid City Defender instead of Spider-Man, Swarthy Green Behemoth as the Incredible Hulk, Guy-Dude in place of He-Man. (Sidenote: I would <i>totally</i> buy a Guy-Dude action figure. Seriously.) Well, <b>FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER</b> is a knock-off superhero action <i>movie</i>: At a glance from a distance, it might resemble the real deal, but when you get close enough to examine the packaging and the paint detail and the overall craftsmanship, you'll probably realize that nearly everything about it is nine kinds of shoddy. It's right around here where the dutiful reader would remind me that 2005's original <i>Fantastic Four</i> smacked of Dollar Tree-ness itself, though I'd argue that, at the very least, it was comparable to the high-roller shelves at Five Below, where items cost a non-budget-threatening $5.<br /><p align="justify"><i>FF</i> 1's silly pandering to 10-year-old boys ran neck-and-neck with a pleasant, undemanding, junky-fun (or funny-junk?) appeal, kind of the same reaction this child of the '80s has to reruns of the old <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> cartoon. In <i>Rise of the Silver Surfer</i>, though, the race is over, and the brazen juvenility not only leaves the entertainment value eating its dust, but it doubles back to soak any straggling charm in a mighty torrent of urine — and it had asparagus and Bac-Os for dinner, folks. So soon after the crummy <i>Spider-Man 3</i>, do we really need to see another superhero busting a move on the dance floor? Hell no, but here's the elastic Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) winding his ropy limbs around a mob of delighted female admirers at a disco club regardless. It's his bachelor party on the eve of his nuptials to the Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba) — her powers: self-explanatory — but the celebration is cut short after what appears to be a chrome-plated Kelly Slater from outer space zips into our atmosphere and incites some alarming apocalyptic phenomena in Egypt, Japan and, of course, the U.S.<br /><p align="justify">Okay, here's the thing: This Silver Surfer dude, as I've been told by too many friends who dig the old <i>FF</i> comics, is a pretty badass character, but <i>Rise</i> portrays him as a liquid-metal mannequin who speaks in soporific end-of-the-world portents (Laurence Fishburne provides his ominous timbre) and is brought to life via CGI effects that were more exciting in <i>Terminator 2</i>, oh, 16 years ago. He's the subservient summoner of a planet-devouring cosmic force known as Galactus, who's realized here as a cosmic funnel cloud, and not the über-imposing interstellar deity of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's 1960s source material. This botches the climactic showdown — cardboard X-Men rejects (Chris Evans' piping-hot Human Torch and Michael Chiklis' Thing, a brick house with limbs and a temper, complete the bickering quartet) vs. a giant tornado — but hey, it's not like the movie, with its witless jabs at celebrity culture (Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman's wedding is a major media event) and anemic action sequences (the good guys save endangered patrons on the crumbling London Eye: swell!), suddenly took a turn for the worse. No, the whole show's a clunky sham, right down to the overblown title: The Silver Surfer doesn't <i>rise</i> as much as he crashes a chintzy toy convention you were already jonesing to leave anyway. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-65190368265791748972007-05-19T13:49:00.001-04:002009-07-23T13:50:18.956-04:00popScorn | And don't forget the robots!<p><center><img src="http://static.flickr.com/108/258716664_6630aa77c0_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Far be it from me to publicize a film i haven't even seen yet, but ... come on. This <a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/transformers.html">new trailer</a> for Michael Bay's <i>Transformers</i> — opens nationwide on July 4! — totally kicks ass. True, i can't think of a single Bay flick i've ever liked, and okay, it doesn't inspire much promise that the thing's scripted by two guys who wrote <i>The Mask of Zorro</i> and Bay's <i>The Island</i>, and sure, it's a live-action, big-budget summer blockbuster based on an '80s toy fad — not exactly the benchmark of quality cinema. But hey, if it makes zillions of dollars, we can probably expect to see some pretty awe-inspiring shit in the near future. Just think: Reese Witherspoon in <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Shortcake">Strawberry Shortcake</a></i>! <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe#The_80s">G.I. Joe</a></i>, starring Seann William Scott as Duke, Johnny Knoxville as Flint, and Lindsay Lohan in a dual role as Scarlett and the voice of Cobra Commander! Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, and the rest of the <i>Glengarry Glen Ross</i> cast reuniting for <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Fighters">Food Fighters</a></i>, featuring a very special appearance by Robert De Niro as <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Chiptheripper.jpg">Chip the Ripper</a>!<br /><p align="justify">Anyway, just watch the clip. If the <i>ch-ch-chuh</i> noise when Optimus Prime morphs from truck cab to automaton doesn't make you feel like you're 10 again, then maybe nothing will.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-38716453014465768132007-05-09T18:05:00.001-04:002007-06-26T15:44:56.619-04:00film | Motel icks<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/471284035_6f395a21d0_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Just about every other coming attraction you see these days seems to be heralding the arrival of another sequel or remake, and maybe it's a further testament to the lack of fresh ideas floating around Hollywood that, even on the rare occasion a film's not blatantly based on a prior work, it usually still feels like you've seen it 11 times before. For example, take <b>VACANCY</b>, an "original" screenplay written by Mark L. Smith that essentially amounts to a greatest-hits compilation of scenes and concepts from sundry better thrillers. In other words, a bickering married couple (Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale) have nowhere to go but the ooky motel a couple miles down the winding country backroad on which their car died, and what ensues is an overtly familiar mish-mash of <i>Psycho</i>, <i>Breakdown</i>, <i>Duel</i>, <i>8mm</i>, <i>Joy Ride</i>, <i>Identity</i>, <i>The Hitcher</i>, and <i>U-Turn</i>, and I'm sure there's more, but those are the only titles that came to mind in the 96 seconds it took me to write this sentence.<br /><p align="justify">Actually, the early passages of <i>Vacancy</i> are staged with enough verve and juicy conviction that their redundant uselessness is, at first, quite easy to disregard. The performances by Wilson and Beckinsale emit a chokehold intensity, and director Nimród Antal reinvigorates wheezy horror clichés — the deceptively helpful auto mechanic (Ethan Embry), the off-puttingly kooky desk clerk (Frank Whaley), the apallingly seedy room décor — with visceral pizzazz. As our stranded heroes' anxious unease begins to bleed into reasonable terror, <i>Vacancy</i> offers a gripping — if not notably novel — what's-going-to-happen-next scenario. Unfortunately, what happens next is a big reveal — Wilson and Beckinsale have walked into a grotesque trap set by a snuff-filmmaking crew — that turns the remainder of the film into silly cat-and-mouse stuff, wherein the mice suffer from delayed-reaction syndrome, and the cats come across as too bumbling and disorganized to have successfully carried out this nasty business, as a wall of videotapes suggests, countless times before. Initially, you might appreciate <i>Vacancy</i> for how it manages to effectively unnerve without resorting to the gristle and ick of its shocker contemporaries (<i>Hostel</i>, the <i>Saw</i> series), but you'll eventually realize that it's lacking both blood spatter <i>and</i> brain matter. <b>C</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-68987318566752742152007-04-26T17:59:00.001-04:002007-06-26T15:45:14.002-04:00film | I like to watch<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/197/471284027_072d3e6a6b_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">If Hollywood's lazy obsession with modernizing classic lit into high-gloss larks for the mallrat set — i.e., Austen's <i>Emma</i> as <i>Clueless</i>, Shakespeare's <i>Twelfth Night</i> as <i>She's the Man</i> — has finally run its course, it only makes sense that they'd next turn their attention to classic cinema. But shock of shocks: <b>DISTURBIA</b>, a contemporary revamping of Alfred Hitchcock's <i>Rear Window</i>, that still-gripping 1954 landmark of suspense and suspicion, is more creepy-crawly fun than it has any right to be, and most of the credit goes to Shia Labeouf's crackerjack performance in the Jimmy Stewart role. As a troubled teen on summer house arrest for decking his teacher — and the teacher kinda had it coming, honestly — he's a smartass hero worth rooting for. Oh, and he's bright and resourceful, too, never stepping out of the realm of high-school-senior believability, yet (mercifully) sidestepping the dumbass decisions that end up getting many of his slasher-flick peers hacked to bits. You like this kid, and his angsty amateur sleuthing keeps you glued to the screen with a big old dollop of up-your-spine tingle even when <i>Disturbia</i> stumbles into a subpar house-of-horrors endgame.<br /><p align="justify">Co-writers Christopher B. Landon and Carl Ellsworth alter the handicap — Stewart's broken leg for Labeouf's ankle monitor — and if you think that sounds like a downgrade in the dire-incapacitation department, well, OK, you'd be right. But the canniest thing Landon and Ellsworth do is to <i>not</i> confine Labeouf to a wheelchair, which makes him more of a proactive detainee than a helpless victim-in-waiting, which, in turn, gives <i>Disturbia</i> a youthful-malcontent-who-cried-wolf identity of its own. And what a wolf — as the neighbor who's a serial killer in regular-joe clothing (come on, like you expect him to turn out to be a nice guy), <i>The Green Mile</i>'s David Morse oozes tightly-wound hostility, and he's so brilliant at keeping the psycho in check that he makes Labeouf's vulnerable, widowed mom (<i>The Matrix</i>'s Carrie-Ann Moss) suspect that her son has transitioned from stir-crazy to just plain crazy. True, there's no real surprise to how this all plays out, but the predictable story arc is goosed with the techno-voyeuristic slickness to suck in the Livejournalists and the YouTubers, and, at its heart, it's also got enough old-fashioned spunk to appeal to those folks who don't know what the hell Livejournal or YouTube are. <i>Disturbia</i>'s pretty easy to nitpick apart (wouldn't Morse's home emit one ungodly odor?), but it's extremely easier to enjoy. <b>B+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-55220451960614147442007-04-24T14:47:00.001-04:002007-06-26T15:46:07.500-04:00film | Holy crap<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/193/471284033_aa6b9fbdb6_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">The poster for the occult mystery <b>THE REAPING</b> sports the tagline <i>What hath God wrought?</i>, but the question first and foremost on my mind while navigating its convoluted tale of biblical nuttiness was <i>Did Hilary Swank owe somebody a favor?</i> Because, um, hello, she's young-ish, she has two Oscars, she's got clout and prestige and whatnot. I know people complain about how few quality roles there are for women in Hollywood, but is the situation so dire that Swank voluntarily signed up for the cringe-worthiest career about-face since Halle Berry won the Academy Award for <i>Monster's Ball</i>, then opted to star in the immensely idiotic shocker <i>Gothika</i>, which, by the way, is from the same production studio as <i>The Reaping</i>? Uh-oh. Let us now pray for Reese Witherspoon, 2006's Best Actress, who, if the trend holds and the timing is right, should be starring in some abysmal horror flick sometime this autumn.<br /><p align="justify">Swank plays a former pastor who — say it with me — lost her faith when her husband and child were killed on a missionary trip to Africa. What's a devoutly religious gal who's royally ticked off at God to do? Why, become an atheist professor of miracle-debunkery at Louisiana State University, of course, which makes her the go-to authority when a nearby backwoods community claims that the water in their creeks has ominously turned to blood overnight. the Bible-beatin' locals fear this is the first in a revisited series of the 10 plagues of Egypt from the book of Exodus, so Swank sets out to explain it all with science — only she can't, natch, cuz <i>The Reaping</i> is a supernatural thriller with at least nine more special-effects sequences to realize. It gives very little away to note that Swank's made a re-believer upon being assailed by a swarm of locusts, but that's plague no. 8, and it follows the boils, the lice and the death of the livestock. Me, I'd probably get a mean case of the wiggins when hundreds of flies — and that's no. 3, one of the early plagues — instantaneously envelope the grilled fish I was gonna eat for dinner, which is a roundabout suggestion that Swank takes too long to grasp that she's in way over her skeptical head.<br /><p align="justify">Yawn, here's a twist: This freaky business is connected to a barefoot devil child (<i>Bridge to Terabithia</i>'s Annasophia Robb) who doesn't do much but habitually dart in front of the camera whenever director Stephen Hopkins (<i>Lost in Space</i>) needs to trick viewers into thinking <i>The Reaping</i> is actually scary. Nope, just loud, obnoxious and redundant with the requisite, dumb faux-jolts — phew, it was only a bird! or a tea kettle! or a dream ... within a dream! — that typically come two or three in a row. As for the story, it's the stuff of a lame <i>X-Files</i> two-parter: satanic cults, secret villains, sacred daggers, southern discomfort, and climactic plot revelations involving a character who could resolve everything with an expository line or two if he or she didn't opt to inexplicably remain silent throughout most of the film. Swank invokes scientific techno-jargon like "phenophaline" with a brisk confidence, but she's trapped in a third-rate riff on <i>The Omen</i> — and since a mere nine months ago saw a second-rate <i>remake</i> of <i>The Omen</i>, <i>The Reaping</i> feels like a really burnt offering to the movie gods. <b>D+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-56826324596052605462007-04-19T13:02:00.000-04:002007-06-26T15:44:10.507-04:00film | Army fatigue<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/416565273_ceff6d8c8b_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Exactly how homosexual is <b>300</b>, a fantastical — but hardly fantastic — bit of revisionist history focusing on the small Spartan army that managed to temporarily stave off an impossibly mighty battalion of Persian invaders in what any enthusiastic ancient studies teacher would probably gush was the awesomest last stand, like, ever? It's so homosexual that the nonstop sequences of half-naked musclemen grunting as they jab each other with phallic implements are nearly stud-on-stud porn with a more bombastic soundtrack. It's so homosexual that, when Spartan soldiers run a Persian flank off the edge of a steep cliff, I expected the Weathergirls' "it's raining men" to suddenly kick in on the Dolby. It's so homosexual that it could be subtitled <i>A Gay Romp with Leonidas and Xerxes at Thermopylae</i>.<br /><p align="justify">Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.<br /><p align="justify">But <i>300</i> must think that there <i>is</i> something wrong with that, because its homoerotic subtext is matched only by its homophobic one. The movie is essentially an all-you-can-eye buffet of swarthy Spartan soldiers flaunting and flexing their chisled hardbodies, but for all its read-between-the-lines beefcake posturing, <i>300</i> seems decidedly skittish about being viewed as anything other than an ode to hetero manliness, a <i>¿quién es más macho?</i> stomp around the battlefield. When the Spartan king Leonidas (his royal ripped-ness Gerard Butler of <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i>) slams his Persian foes as "boy-lovers" — right, because same-sex pederasty was <i>never</i> the thing to do in 480 BC Sparta — it's a queasy moment, but when <i>300</i> finally shows this evil Persian threat, the hoo-rah bigotry segues into laughable camp. It turns out Persia boasts less of a military than a marching circuit party; in between skirmishes, they enjoy elaborate orgies — don't worry, dudes, cuz the camera only lingers over the lesbo stuff — and their ruler, the self-professed god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, newly of television's <i>Lost</i>), is realized as a towering drag-queen priss in gold body jewelry and about seven layers of Max Factor. <i>Yeah, Sparta!</i> we're meant to cheer. <i>Kick their boy-lovin', accessorizin', alternative-lifestyle-havin' asses! Hurry, before they kidnap you at spearpoint and drag you to a Cher concert!</i><br /><p align="justify">Seekers of the thrill-ride viewing experience might not mind the garishly confused overtones, because <i>300</i> contains a proper smattering of visceral excesses, chiefly the striking monochromatic compositions that director Zack Snyder (2004's <i>Dawn of the Dead</i> redux) and cinematographer Larry Fong (also from <i>Lost</i>) lift straight from Frank Miller's graphic-novel source. As in 2005's adaptation of Miller's <i>Sin City</i>, however, razzle-dazzle can only carry an empty stylistic exercise so far, and less than a half-hour in, the visual punch becomes more of a nagging flick on the earlobe. You'd think the story of Sparta's David fending off Persia's Goliath would loan itself to a rousing combat epic, but Snyder is so obsessed with parlaying the cool factor that he shoots the bloody bits up close and personal — great for a clear view of the graphic slow-motion carnage, but it hampers the bigger picture. I dunno how the <i>real</i> Spartans managed to <i>really</i> defeat the <i>real</i> Persians without the assist from today's finest green-screen craftsmen.<br /><p align="justify">Yeah, yeah, I get it: The Spartans didn't actually overpower martial-artist acrobats and a marauding menagerie of elephants and rhinos. These parts offer a tenuous link to historical accuracy; it's more a depiction of their triumph as word-of-mouth mythos probably spun it. (And <i>300</i> is narrated, in fact, in tall-tale pronouncements that obnoxiously states the obvious: "The wolf begins to circle the boy.") But even as a visionary history-class goregasm, <i>300</i> flounders, too redundant in its spurting ultra-violence, its bellowed declarations ("THIS! IS! SPARTA!"), its heavily digitized comic-book artifice to be much in the way of escapist entertainment. Strip the film of rampant sexual insinuation, initial <i>ooohs</i> and <i>ahhhs</i>, and quite possibly the finest parade of male abdominal ripples ever to grace the screen, and Edwin Starr was right: War <i>is</i> good for absolutely nothing. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-14381468988296708332007-04-10T13:41:00.001-04:002007-06-26T15:46:32.657-04:00film | Over troubled water<center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/174/427081316_8c94ed1a6e_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify"><b>BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA</b> faithfully adapts Katherine Paterson's beloved 1977 young-adult book, but in this case, <i>faithfully</i> may not mean that the film sticks to its source material. No, it's more of a bewildered allusion to Walden Media, the production company led by conservative moneybags Philip Anschutz that aspires to swaddle its kiddie-oriented properties — including <i>Terabithia</i> and the <i>Chronicles of Narnia</i> film series that recently launched — in evangelical values and themes. Hey, if that's your bag, I at least hope it matches your shoes, but watching <i>Bridge to Terabithia</i>, I kept wondering why a guy who's funded research institutes that support only intelligent-design studies and ballot initiatives to legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians would back a movie that invites its audience to, as one character succinctly puts it, "Close your eyes and keep your mind wide open"?<br /><p align="justify">Oh well. My personal issues with the producers' wonky politicking aside, <i>Terabithia</i> is a film best described as nice: well-intentioned, intermittently engaging and hardly a chore to endure, and as the end credits roll, you sit there thinking, "Gosh, I wish I liked that movie more than I actually did." I blame the fantasy genre's oversaturation — you've got your <i>Narnia</i>s, your <i>Harry Potter</i>s, your <i>Lord of the Rings</i>es. In <i>Terabithia</i>, when two fifth-grade classmates (<i>RV</i>'s Josh Hutcherson and <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i>'s Annasophia Robb) dodge mean bullies and stern parents by escaping into a make-believe world of trolls, sorcerers and other sundry critters, you don't really get the feeling that anything especially magical is happening; it's just a couple kids surrounding themselves with special-effects imagery they've cobbled together from sugar-buzzed marathon viewings of <i>Narnia</i>, <i>Harry Potter</i> and <i>Lord of the Rings</i> on DVD. Also, that both Hutcherson and Robb look too old to be sparring with pretend monsters from a tree-fort in the woods — he was 14 at the time of filming, she was 13 — doesn't help to sell the copious flights of fantasy. On the page, their characters are 10, an age that seems more in line with their horsing around.<br /><p align="justify">The non-imaginary scenes go down easier. They employ the usual clichés found in your garden-variety coming-of-age family flick — the soft-rock musical montage (let's dance while we paint the living room, everybody!), the crushed-on inspirational teacher (<i>Elf</i>'s Zooey Deschanel, deflecting a borderline-creepy role with innocuous oomph), the dour dad (<i>The X-Files</i>' Robert Patrick) whose love is unyieldingly tough, the little sister (cutie-pie Bailee Madison, a natural at 7) who boo-hoos after being denied entry to the big kids' club — but they're performed with heart and enthusiasm by a cast that shines through what eventually amounts to a CGI-enhanced After-School Special. Hutcherson especially reigns in the story's jarringly dire finale with soulful conviction, emerging as a young actor to watch — preferably in better movies. Next up for him: the queasily-titled <i>Firehouse Dog</i>, which I'm gonna go ahead and bet isn't one of them. <b>C+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-46059836135931079102007-03-29T14:13:00.001-04:002007-06-26T15:47:00.822-04:00film | Bad to the bone<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/142/400893004_f0d29af983_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Nicolas Cage, the otherworldly hero of the garishly awful <b>GHOST RIDER</b>, is such a fan of the film's Marvel-Comics source that he has a tattoo of the main character on his arm. Which raises an extremely important question: Why would he attach himself to a movie that crams his beloved idol into ... well, i won't call it a bad joke. 2002's <i>Daredevil</i>, as directed and written by <i>Ghost Rider</i> director/writer Mark Steven Johnson — now, that was a bad joke. <i>Ghost Rider</i>, on the other hand, wishes it was noodle-headed enough to be deemed a joke. It's just plain old bad.<br /><p align="justify">Remember the playground dance-fighting between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner in <i>Daredevil</i>? Well, imagine the same awkwardness stripped of the holy-crap-this-can't-be-real amusement factor, and you've got a solid idea of how Johnson shoehorns ill-advised bursts of self-conscious "comedy" into material that demands a consistently dark treatment. True, i've never read the comic, but something tells me it's not so absurd that the human alter-ego of its titular badass skeleton biker grooves along with the music of the Carpenters and swills jelly beans from a martini glass when he's not commanding the flames of hades to fight an array of nasty foes by night. Watching <i>Ghost Rider</i>'s smug stabs at crowd-pleasery, you can almost hear Johnson laud his movie as a subversive mash-up of humor and action, but calling it an unpalatable porridge of silliness and hokey computer effects would be more honest. <i>Ghost Rider</i> recalls <i>Spawn</i> (1999), another botched attempt to parlay a popular comic in which a good guy inadvertently gets recruited as a demonic emissary for Beelzebub into a film franchise. And the similarities don't stop there, mostly because I hated <i>Spawn</i>, too.<br /><p align="justify">Cage stars as Johnny Blaze, a stunt cyclist whose backfired pact with the devil (Peter Fonda, confusing bored with evil) to save his dying papa cost him his soul, which means that Johnny morphs into a bony bounty hunter with a burning skull whenever Mephistopheles requires the aid of hired, er, muscle. Thus, after Satan Jr. (<i>American Beauty</i>'s fantastic Wes Bentley, AWOL since 2002 and climbing aboard an extraordinarily lame comeback vehicle) riles his dad by crossing over to the mortal plane in order to nab a supernatural artifact that could trigger the apocalypse — is there any other kind? — Johnny decides to use his powers against the entire hellish patriarchy, incorporating only the occasional lull to woo his teen sweetie, now a va-va-va-voom-ish television reporter played <i>Hitch</i>'s uncomfortably miscast Eva Mendes. in a sight-gag blunder that echoes the cringe-worthy camp moment from <i>Batman & Robin</i> where the Caped Crusader whips out his Bat-Mastercard, she consults a magic eight-ball (she keeps one in her purse, of course) to see if Johnny will make the fancy-restaurant date he's running late to. Uh-huh. In <i>Ghost Rider</i>, all signs point to groan. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-552741053716622702007-03-23T16:57:00.001-04:002007-08-30T07:17:13.926-04:00film | Bored of the rings<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/145/431485247_6f78dde548_o.jpg"></center><p><blockquote>"There was a time when the fierce and beautiful land of Alagaësia was ruled by men astride mighty dragons ..."</blockquote><p align="justify">So goes the opening narration of the swords-and-sorcery yarn <b>ERAGON</b>, voiced by none other than Jeremy Irons in a bored sigh that says, "Yeah, yeah. I know: I have an Oscar, I'm too good for this shit, yadda yadda. But hey, they all can't be <i>Reversal of Fortune</i>. I gotta eat, and ... and Malkovich is in this, too!" It's a portent of the not-quite-inspired goofiness to come in director Stephen Fangmeier's clunky adaptation of Christopher Paolini's kid-lit tome, from the bizarro casting — <i>Blood Diamond</i>'s Djimon Hounsou as an elfin ruler in a brunette pageboy, <i>Trainspotting</i>'s Robert Carlyle as an evil warlock who's styled to resemble a gene-pool orgy between Meat Loaf, Gloria Stuart and Evil Willow from <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i> (gah! my eyes!) — to the wonky dialogue that'd feel at home in comic-book-blurb form but sounds pretty damn nutty emitted by actors trying to be serious: "Into the sky to win or die!", "Durza will send his Urgals after us!", and, my personal favorite, "Before you can cast a spell, you must learn the magic language of the elves."<br /><p align="justify">Newcomer Edward Speelers plays a young farmhand who stumbles across a mysterious oversized egg while hunting and becomes the guardian of the female dragon pup it hatches. She grows at an alarming rate and begins to telepathically communicate with Speelers (Rachel Weisz of <i>The Constant Gardener</i> provides her vocal purr), which leads to endless scenes where the dragon and the boy mentally chit-chat while quietly blinking at each other. I dunno. When a character speaks, I enjoy seeing its face and mouth move accordingly, but that's a minor distraction alongside how blatantly <i>Star-Wars</i>-with-fire-breathing-behemoths-instead-of-X-Wing-Starfighters the story is. There's the murdered uncle, the kidnapped princess, the wizened mentor — there's even a moment for our blonde, callow hero to stare off into the sunset as the orchestral score swells. And there's John Malkovich as the dark lord Galbatorix, whose wonky moniker might be a cryptogram that decodes to spell D-A-R-T-H V-A-D-E-R. Toss in some J.R. Tolkien (nasty monster-soldiers) here and a bit of J.K. Rowling (mystical scars) there, and you've got an effects-laden medieval mélange that's as blandly inoffensive as it is overtly familiar. When I learned that Paolini was only in his teens at the time he put this tale on paper, I thought, <i>Yep, that sounds about right</i>. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-80390149415315413332007-03-19T11:53:00.000-04:002007-08-29T13:40:57.453-04:00film | Silence is moldin'<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/133/404896070_62ceab130f_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Maybe director Jamie Babbit has never actually interacted with someone who's hearing impaired, or maybe the characters in <b>THE QUIET</b> are all a bunch of stupid idiots. Either way, her ridiculous potboiler proffers a plot twist that crashes an orgy of sensationalist camp topicality masquerading as a "serious" psychological thriller. <i>The Quiet</i> is equal parts after-school special, <i>American Beauty</i>-esque suburban-scandal drama, and <i>Mean Girls</i> rewritten as a lurid V.C. Andrews page-turner, and if I made it sound goofy and amusing, please accept my apologies. It's neither, especially once you factor in that there's no winking chink in the film's solemn facade, which is odd considering that Babbit's prior work — the sexuality-conversion farce <i>But I'm a Cheerleader</i>, episodes of the plastic-surgery soap <i>Nip/Tuck</i> — flaunts her flair for the outrageous-aware.<br /><p align="justify">Camilla Belle of that awful <i>When a Stranger Calls</i> redux plays a deaf-mute orphaned teen who's taken in by her wealthy godparents, but since their little-miss-bitch daughter (<i>24</i>'s Elisha Cuthbert) relentlessly antagonizes Belle at school and home — and especially because dad (<i>The Opposite of Sex</i>'s Martin Donovan) has a sicko predilection that mom (<i>The Sopranos</i>' Edie Falco) swills pills to avoid dealing with — their philanthropy doesn't make much sense. But the aforementioned revelation here has to do with Belle's true nature, which: A) when discovered and used against Belle by Cuthbert, still doesn't provide a good-enough reason for Belle to not blow the whistle on her new family's creepy secret; and B) is concealed pretty sloppily, given that anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to Belle might wonder how she appears to understand what people say to her without concentrating on their lips. Well, read mine: With its room-temp stabs at shock value, <i>The Quiet</i> comes off as a Lifetime-network movie featuring flashes of pay-cable kink. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-45617549556084581812007-03-06T22:56:00.001-05:002007-06-26T15:48:41.698-04:00film | Sarah, plain and dull<center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/175/413584743_5b1ac653f9_o.jpg"></center><p>Dear Sarah Michelle Gellar,<br /><p align="justify">Hi. How are you? How's married life with Freddie? How are Faith and Giles doing? Please tell me Willow and Kennedy broke up. Did Xander ever call that nice Sandy Duncan to find out where she got her glass eye? I guess you heard about how that whole Shansu deal went down in — wait. <i>Shit</i>, I'm sorry. I was so engrossed in those seven amazing seasons of <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i>, I keep forgetting they weren't, you know, like ... <i>real</i>.<br /><p align="justify">Oh, hey. Speaking of the show, I wanted to tell you that I caught your new flick <b>THE RETURN</b> the other day, and it sorta Dawn-ed (haha, get it?) on me that you need to step it up, girl. Your post-<i>Buffy</i> projects have been few and far between, and when you do act in a movie, it's a poor vehicle for your tremendous charisma and tasty way with a one-liner. OK. Allow me to recap: I actually didn't mind <i>Scooby-Doo 2</i>, if only because it was a decent improvement over <i>Scooby-Doo</i> Uno, and because Linda Cardinelli and Matthew Lillard are truly the perfect Velma and Shaggy, but you were definitely miscast as Daphne, who was scripted as an ornamental Buffy clone in red hair dye. <i>The Grudge</i> might've been a box-office hit, I'll give you that, but it contained a scene in which a vengeful spirit had to be buzzed into an apartment complex in order to haunt somebody. In other words, ew. You literally jumped out of <i>The Grudge 2</i> after maybe eight minutes of screen time, and I'd like to think that when you heard they were making it, you rolled your eyes and were all like, "Fine, I'll do it for continuity's sake, but I am <i>totally</i> zooming through it like Jamie Lee in that 26th <i>Halloween</i> sequel: Boo! Aaah! Splat! Cha-ching!", and that is <i>so</i> proof that you're one smart cookie. (And pretty, too! I dig the brunette deal you've got going on!) And I know <i>Simply Irresistible</i> came out in the middle of <i>Buffy</i>'s third season, so I shouldn't bring it up here, but Sarah. <i>Sarah</i>. It was so freakin' terrible, I couldn't <i>not</i> include it. Two words: <i>enchanted crustacean.</i><br /><p align="justify">So, um, <i>The Return</i>. Yawn. I mean, it's not as awful as that episode where Buffy and that fraternity are transformed into neanderthals by the tainted beer, but it's also not good, like ... oh, every other episode of <i>Buffy</i>. You play a sadsack sales rep for a trucking company, for God's sake. I know you actor people need to stretch by taking different roles and stuff — and, yeah, this is about as un-<i>Buffy</i> as you can get — but this Shyamalan-ian supernatural drama ain't doin' either of us a favor.<br /><p align="justify">So this Joanna (you), she's a morose self-mutilator due to a hazy childhood trauma, and she's cruising through the south on business with a stalker ex (Adam Scott) — a subplot that disappears so quickly, it's less a red herring than a pink anchovy — and her demons — not, unfortunately, the literal kind you used to wallop on <i>Buffy</i> — in hot pursuit. She experiences these vivid flashbacks to a violent ordeal that doesn't seem to have anything to do with her, only it actually <i>does</i>, see, because ... well, you already know. You're <i>in</i> the movie ... which reminds me: I've got a couple questions that maybe you can answer. Like, OK. If the you-know-what wanted to find you-know-who, why on earth would it make you cut yourself? Let's say you bled to death; it'd be screwed. And how did the bad guy manage to get his truck ahead of you for that pivotal climactic jolt? And why did he hide the knife in the gas tank? And aren't you incredibly fortunate that the vehicle was collecting rust right there on his lot, and that the undercarriage had corroded just enough for you to reach in and find it?<br /><p align="justify">Sarah, poppet. I adore you, and I want to give <i>The Return</i> a few scraps of credit for its terrifically moody production values, and for at least trying to unnerve without resorting to the endless gristle of one of those <i>Hostel Saw Massacre</i> torture shows that are so popular with the kids these days. And while the obligatory big-twist finale is mildly interesting, getting there — a murky slog through familiar territory — is hardly worth it. If I was the kind of guy who graded movies on some stupid blog in order to make myself seem more important than I actually am, I'd probably give <i>The Return</i> a <b>C-</b>, and I might end my review by asking you to quit this dreary-thriller crap and do some returning yourself — to your roots. I miss you dusting vamps, sure, but most of all, I miss looking like you were having a ball doing it.<br /><p>Love always, your best friend forever,<br /><p>Jamie.<br /><p>p.s. Seriously, Willow and <i>Kennedy</i>?Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-63603049523622590552007-03-05T17:22:00.001-05:002009-12-07T10:05:05.116-05:00film | Snooze alarmed<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/154/412511241_08f6695d4d_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Let it be known: I heart Michel Gondry. I heart his <i>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</i>, I heart the DVD collection of his commercials and short films, and I especially heart his music videos for the Chemical Brothers, Kylie Minogue and Cibo Matto. I do <i>not</i>, however, heart <b>THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP</b>, Gondry's quirky, fluttering juxtaposition of slumberland fantasia and covers-yanked-off reality — actually, his vision of covers-yanked-off reality is pretty fantasied, too — that cracks under the weight of its own incessant whimsy. What happened? My guess is that Gondry, for the first time, is working from his own screenplay, not a script from the brilliant imagination of Charlie Kaufman (who authored Gondry's <i>Eternal Sunshine</i> and <i>Human Nature</i>), and not a catchy dance-pop song that compliments Gondry's dependably trippy visual aesthetic terrifically. Yeah, Gondry's an insanely inventive director. As a writer, well ... he's an insanely inventive director.<br /><p align="justify">The über-charming Gael García Bernal (<i>Y Tu Mamá También</i>) plays <i>Sleep</i>'s drowsy hero, but the movie stretches his innate likeability so far that it snaps. As Stepháne, an aspiring inventor who awkwardly flits between the brash spunk of his dream self and the social insecurities of his waking life, Bernal is such an irritatingly infantilized man-child that he makes the pop persona of, say, Adam Sandler seem posh enough to join Dame Judi Dench for afternoon tea. Stepháne wobbles into a crush on his new apartment neighbor (Charlotte Gainsbourg) — her name: why, Stephánie, of course — but since their kooky pseudo-courtship develops both in actuality and in his unconscious mind, and because Gondry insists on blurring the lines between the two, you're never quite sure how to interpret the logic of the characters' actions: Somnambulating, Stepháne slides nonsensical letters under Stephánie's door, and he breaks into her place in order to kidnap a beloved stuffed horse to rig to it a mechanism that enables it to gallop on its own; she responds with anger (understandable) at his invasion of her privacy, then expresses adoration for the gift; he's momentarily humble and penitent before bouncing back to his bratty collegiate-kindergarten jocularity ("I like your boobs. They're very friendly and unpretentious"). At best, he's merely insane; at worst, he's an off-puttingly petulant baby who reins in his obvious desire for Stephánie by treating her pretty much like crap. Either way, <i>The Science of Sleep</i>'s coddling, twee portrayal of him as an endearingly introspective stargazer is a bit of a stretch.<br /><p align="justify">Gondry's flights of fancy and reliance on unusually dazzling (but low-tech) effects — a television studio made from egg cartons, a faucet that runs a stream of crinkled blue cellophane — struggle to liberate the film from its obnoxious personality and inane cutesy-poo dialogue (Stepháne: "Each structure has its own resonant frequency!"; Stephánie: "Destruction is an obstruction for the construction!"), but it's in vain. As a pure example of Gondry's mind-bending sensory ingenuity, <i>The Science of Sleep</i> is nothing less than a doozy. As a winking portrait of the creative mind gone astray, however, it is what it eats. <b>C-</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-3294969870082362672007-02-21T14:17:00.000-05:002007-09-27T08:54:01.283-04:00film | Gore for precedent<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/63/375562969_2082b0eafd_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Attention, you nutty gore-lovers who thought the previous entries of the <i>Saw</i> and <i>Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i> franchises somehow left a few gaping eviscerations unstaged: Between the sticky death games of <b>SAW III</b> and the tool-shed amputations of <b>THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING</b>, you'll see the human body mauled, maimed and mutilated beyond your grodiest dreams. We movie-reviewin' snobs, we'll bitch and moan like we always do about the wooden gratuitousness of these scare tactics, but the <i>Fangoria</i> faithful seem to dig them <i>because</i> they deliver exactly that — just enough gallons o' gristle and inventive kills to out-ick whatever last month's blood-spattered horror bonanza was — and little else. That said, with its drowning-by-liquified-pig-guts and a machine that makes its occupant do the twist in a way Chubby Checker probably never imagined, <i>Saw III</i> wins in the depraved-showmanship department, cuz ... well, there's only so much you can do with a chainsaw.<br /><p align="justify">Anyway, let's start with <i>The Beginning</i>, an unnecessary prequel to 2003's better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be <i>Texas Chainsaw</i> redux, sorta superfluous itself, I guess, but also a truly unnerving carnival sideshow. <i>The Beginning</i> initially appears to be a glib analytical breakdown of Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) — the series' mute, stab-happy, other-folks'-epidermis-wearin' boogeyman — and his sick afflictions, but pop-psychology is more or less shrugged off after the opening credits, which means that we're spared a campy moment in which a cute li'l Leatherface brings meat tenderizer and a mallet to his kindergarten show-and-tell. But hey, that would've been preferable to the mostly scene-for-scene restaging of <i>TCM</i> '03, this time with a quartet of 1970s youths (Jordana Brewster, Matthew Bomer, Diora Baird and Taylor Handley) running afoul of Leatherface's cannibalistic clan while road-tripping through the Lone Star state before the boys enlist for a tour of duty in Vietnam. Leatherface's maniacal adoptive pa (R. Lee Ermey, always a batshit-crazy drill sergeant, never a bride) tries to slice and dice the kids into a four-course meal, and, uh, since none of these characters stick around to warn Jessica Biel and co. in <i>TCM</i> '03, it's obvious from the get-go that this bloodbath ends with a full freezer.<br /><p align="justify">While the inevitable cast casualties of <i>The Beginning</i> render it a pointless wallow in cinematic violence, they're precisely the reason the <i>Saw</i> flicks are so damn popular: It's less about who dies than <i>how</i> they die, and the rusty booby traps and torture devices fashioned by Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), the anti-hero monster of <i>Saw</i>, to reform society's miscreants and sinners — y'know, they'll repent if they survive — are equal parts Rube Goldberg and the Marquis de Sade in their devious brilliance. Jigsaw and his <i>Saw II</i> lackey (Shawnee Smith) are still prone to windbag pontifications ("Death is a surprise party ... unless you're already dead on the inside"; insert evil laughter here) as they target two new marks: a grieving dad (<i>Braveheart</i>'s Angus Macfayden), given the opportunity to avenge his son's death, and a sullen ER physician (Bahar Soomekh), locked in a bomb collar while she operates on Jigsaw's terminal brain tumor. Believe it or not, this stuff is a cut above <i>Saw</i> and <i>Saw II</i> in terms of performance and writing, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement considering how barrel-bottom both films were. Hell, maybe I'm only giving <i>Saw III</i> a little extra credit because, amidst the non-stop unpleasantness of its entrail-soaked money shots, it addresses the shoddiness of its predecessors by working back through the entire narrative to tie up their loose ends and fill in their plot holes. Flesh wounds aren't the only gaping things in the <i>Saw</i> movies.<br /><p align="justify">As <i>Saw III</i> reaches its ballsy (for this kind of film), definitively final finale, you've gotta wonder what big twist the writers could possibly cook up for <i>Saw IV</i> — which is, of course, scheduled for release later this year. Please, franchise gods, deliver us from yet another <i>Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>, but if the <i>Saw</i>s keep improving at this rate, holy cow, <i>Saw VIII</i> might actually be good. <i>Saw III</i>: <b>C</b> <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning</i>: <b>D+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-3695712469578516842007-02-16T15:20:00.000-05:002007-06-26T16:23:39.846-04:00film | Diary of a mad white woman<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/174/375575915_c919c4e06f_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">If the American Film Institute compiles a list of the 100 creepiest movie characters, it's a safe bet that Dame Judi Dench's aggressively busybody history teacher from <b>NOTES ON A SCANDAL</b> will rank somewhere on there. Clinical shrinks might find a disturbing case study on pathological loneliness in this lady ... provided she ever opened up to anything other than her journal, where she cuts loose with pages and pages of scrawled self-pity and snobby, usually vitriolic observations about everybody else. Her latest fixation: Cate Blanchett as the new art teacher at her London comprehensive school. After Blanchett succumbs to the moony advances of a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson), Dench spies them in a sexual clinch, then essentially — and very delicately — coerces blanchett into an eerie companionship that recalls Matt Damon's psychosexual fancying of Jude Law in <i>The Talented Mr. Ripley</i>. Booned by the master-class talents of Dench and Blanchett, <i>Scandal</i> packs a dramatic punch with one of those deliciously diabolical thriller scenarios where there are no saints, sinners prey on the weaknesses of other sinners, and it's less a question of <i>if</i> it'll end badly for those involved than exactly <i>how</i> badly it's going to end.<br /><p align="justify"><i>Notes on a Scandal</i> doesn't take the time to tap into Blanchett's head the way it does with Dench, and the reactions of Blanchett's jilted husband (the excellent Bill Nighy) — hateful towards Dench during a particularly tense moment, friendly to her in their next scene — occasionally feel like key bits of the movie were left on the floor of the editing suite, but these are sacrifices the movie might've made in order to whittle its source — Zoë Heller's 2003 novel, aptly titled <i>What Was She Thinking?</i> — down to a lean, mean 90 minutes. Alas, you forgive the missteps because it's riveting fun to watch Dench's maniacally parasitic repression and Blanchett's dewy boho vulnerability stir a tasty little bite of tabloid sensationalism into an engaging, high-class potboiler. Together, they make <i>Notes on a Scandal</i> scandalously good. <b>B+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-1170279769843452412007-01-31T16:42:00.000-05:002007-06-26T16:07:12.684-04:00film | No sale<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/152/366010272_bff80d1248_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">The few honest-to-God funny moments in the alleged comedy <b>EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH</b> come from the casting of pop tart Jessica Simpson as a new cashier at a Costco-ish bulk store, who, rumor has it, will totally sleep with any co-worker who wins the titular honor. Sure, her big-screen debut in last year's <i>Dukes of Hazzard</i> merely required her to jiggle, look sexy in cut-offs, and pronounce the word "undercarriage" with a Georgian accent, but <i>Employee</i> needs her to be convincing as an engaging romantic lead. She's not, of course, which might be why the movie doesn't seem to give her a lot of dialogue (her big line: "Now, that is some of the best chicken parmesan i've ever had!") or much to do beyond reacting to comedian <i>du jour</i> Dane Cook — who plays the shelf-stocker pining for her sweet, sweet ass — with precisely three different expressions: A) "You're silly!"; B) "I'm pretty!"; and C) "You think i'm pretty, too!" It's almost amusing to watch the film go out of its way to avoid making Simpson do anything but flash her obnoxiously bright smile. <i>Almost</i>.<br /><p align="justify">But let's be honest: <i>Employee of the Month</i> would've sucked even with a legit actress in the role, and that's because its life-on-the-clock farce can't hold a price-scanner to the wickedly sharp and hilariously real portrayals of workplace malaise and management politicking in <i>The Good Girl</i>, <i>Office Space</i> and <i>The 40-Year-Old Virgin</i>. No, <i>Employee</i> is quite content to stay on frat-boy turf: blows to the crotch, homophobic jibes, and fart humor (first gas-passing: seven minutes in) — the type of predictable slacker hijinks that polluted <i>Grandma's Boy</i>, <i>You, Me and Dupree</i> and, oh, about seven or eight other stinkers released in the past year. give Cook a little credit: He's not bad, and he's wisely playing to his 15-to-25-year-old male fan base, but i couldn't shake the feeling that this is exactly the kind of flick he'd rag on in one of his exhaustingly loud stand-up routines. He's quieter here. trying to woo Simpson with charm, compliments and a date cribbed from John Hughes' <i>Career Opportunities</i> — cuz, gee, who <i>wouldn't</i> want to bang a chick who'll do you only if you nab a meaningless superlative? His chief rival: a jerky clerk (Dax Shepard) who's adored by customers because he turns his checkout lane into a floor show. Yeah, right. I don't know anyone who'd subject themselves to a longer wait in line just to see some guy flip their economy-sized bottle of Wesson behind his back like he's Tom Cruise in <i>Cocktail</i>. Pass the jumbo Tylenol. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-1169847741863461832007-01-26T16:41:00.000-05:002007-06-26T15:56:19.371-04:00film | Crimebotchers<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/361534335_915ea90c1b_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Just to clear up any confusion, Brian De Palma's <b>THE BLACK DAHLIA</b> is <i>not</i> culled completely from factual events, but rather the James Ellroy novel that fictionally cracked the titular 1947 unsolved murder case. The acclaimed author has said that his book's speculative pulp functions as a pseudo-dedication to his mother, whose own unsolved murder 11 years later has held his imagination hostage since. That's a haunting story, and one that's far more compelling than the retro generics of De Palma's film, a visually sumptuous but dramatically ridiculous riff on hard-boiled <i>noir</i> classics and, of course, De Palma's favorite sequences from other movies he directed (<i>Scarface</i>, <i>The Untouchables</i>, <i>Carlito's Way</i>). In other words, <i>The Black Dahlia</i> is quintessential De Palma, only bad. <i>Really</i> bad. We're talkin' worse-than-<i>Mission-to-Mars</i> bad here.<br /><p align="justify">The facts: The body of starlet-wannabe Elizabeth Short (<i>Not Another Teen Movie</i>'s Mia Kirshner), 22, is discovered in a field in Los Angeles, bisected at the waist and mutilated further. The make-believe: As buddy cops Aaron Eckhart (<i>Thank You for Smoking</i>) and Josh Hartnett (<i>Pearl Harbor</i>) hunt for the killer, Eckhart downward-spirals into obsession, and Hartnett does a smoldering-look exchange with his pal's girlfriend (Scarlet Johansson in a self-consciously vampy performance that relies far too heavily on a prop cigarette holder). The investigation, which takes a backseat to the tepid romantic triangle — Eckhart's a rakish fit for <i>Dahlia</i>'s rat-a-tat theatrics, but Hartnett and Johansson give the impression they're horsing around in gangster-flick dress-up — and boilerplate civic corruption, later ensnares a bisexual socialite played with a Bugs-Bunny-goes-to-the-ginjoint moxie by Hilary Swank; maybe this character wandered into the film by taking a right at <i>The Hudsucker Proxy</i> and a left at <i>Bullets Over Broadway</i>, because she definitely belongs to a different movie universe than the rest of the cast. Swank figures into one of <i>Dahlia</i>'s bungled plot points: that she's the spitting image of the deceased, who's glimpsed alive but thoroughly sad in a series of seedy black-and-white audition clips. Yeah, um ...<br /><p align="justify"><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/368120213_ca5e27ee07_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">Maybe nobody on the crew noted that Kirshner's period-perfect glamour doesn't nearly match Swank's vogue iciness because they were too busy tending to the hundred different directions the story goes in, forgetting about short — hello, the movie's called <i>The Black Dahlia</i>! — for chunks at a time. De Palma attempts to tie it all together with a final act that delves into high camp, replete with unlikely coincidences, silly deductions, and the screechiest villain confession ever, and why not? He's hit every other note. He even stages one of those sex scenes where Hartnett passionately clears the table of dinner, dishes, linens and centerpieces to make room for him and Johansson to get it on. If the next shot was of Johansson on her knees and picking bits of roasted quail and morteau sausage out of the designer carpet, I might give <i>The Black Dahlia</i> a little more credit. But it wasn't, so i don't have to. <b>D</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24214334.post-1169651267778096642007-01-24T10:07:00.000-05:002007-06-26T16:22:33.274-04:00film | Blunder woman<p><center><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/354817597_1caabd95d2_o.jpg"></center><p align="justify">In <b>MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND</b>, Uma Thurman plays the most annoying superhero since the Wonder Twins and Gleek. She's G-Girl, a nondescript superwoman with a checklist of Supermannish superpowers — incredible strength, heat vision, the ability to fly, et. al. — that she uses to thwart superdisasters (runaway military missiles), combat supervillains (Eddie Izzard's Professor Bedlam), <i>and</i> wreak superhavoc on the average-joe ex (Luke Wilson) who superdumped her superass the moment he realized the superlovemaking wasn't worth putting up with her superneurosis. Yeah, I'm gonna wear out <i>super</i> in the story description cuz i sure as hell ain't gonna be usin' the word to describe the film.<br /><p align="justify">You've heard of phoned-in performances? Well, <i>My Super Ex-Girlfriend</i> is a phoned-in movie: limp and listless with squandered potential all around, as if its writer — <i>The Simpsons</i> vet Don Payne — couldn't be bothered to explore the sly action-figures-have-feelings-too possibilities generated by its juicy screwball premise. In the two funny scenes, Thurman vandalizes Wilson's car (with a twist) and tosses a live shark through his bedroom window, and these bits flicker with a loopy imagination that momentarily encourages you to overlook that G-Girl is a vindictive, unlikeable shrew. And it doesn't help that the harmless, hangdog Wilson is the object of her seemingly non-stop rancor — or that he totally made the right decision in ending their relationship to return the affections of his cute co-worker (<i>Scary Movie</i>'s Anna Faris), a nice gal who's decidedly <i>not</i> a psycho bitch. In a spectacularly uncomfortable pre-break-up sequence, Thurman hoists Wilson into the air and essentially forces him to join the mile-high club as they zoom through the city skyline, and his reaction to having sex at the speed of sound encapsulates the whole show: It should be crazy fun, but oh God, it isn't. <b>D+</b>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00159743723951273795noreply@blogger.com0